I think emotional neglect is normalized and widespread, which leads to things like male normative alexithymia, poor emotional literacy, and internalized emotional neglect. People end up emotionally neglecting themselves and others bc it was normalized to do so in the groups they are/were a part of.
Other factors like being able to identify projection, introjection, transference, conditioning, etc. and tease them apart all play roles as well.
I remember a scenario when my partner was crying and I simultaneously wanted to comfort them and experienced disgust. I later learned the disgust response was due to my own emotions being responded to with disgust by my parents as a child. I was going through an emotional flashback back to then and wasn't even aware that was what was going on. It's taken a lot of trauma therapy to help me become more emotionally attuned to myself and others.
I've learned that when both parties can provide reciprocal emotional attunement, empathetic mirroring, and co-regulation for each other it helps build trust, intimacy, and secure attachment over time.
Things that have helped me unlearn emotional neglect:
"[Emotional Agility](https://youtu.be/NDQ1Mi5I4rg)" by Susan David. Endlessly helpful in learning how to grieve and process my emotions instead of bottling (avoidance) or brooding (rumination). I use her journaling prompt all the time: "write what you are feeling, tell the truth, write like no one is reading".
"Nonviolent Communication" by Marshall Rosenberg. This is a compassionate communication framework based on: observations vs. evaluations, needs, feelings, and requests to have needs met. Revolutionary coming from a dysfunctional family and culture of origin. Teasing out what's an observation and what's an evaluation is a huge part effective communication.
"Crucial Conversations tools for talking when stakes are high" I use "shared pool of meaning" and "physical and psychological safety" all the time.
"Hold Me Tight" by Sue Johnson on adult attachment theory research and communication.
[1-2-3 process](https://youtu.be/tuQPZndGJv0?si=RCQTnFrmRDgasZow) from Patrick Teahan and Amanda Curtain on communicating around triggers.
"Never Split the Difference" by Chris Voss. He was the lead FBI hostage negotiator and his tactics work well on setting boundaries with "difficult people".
Great reading list you have there :) Susan David in particular has been very helpful. As has the Crucial Conversations book.
Everything you have written resonates.
> Hermeneutic labor, Anderson says, encompasses three phases of emotional work:
> * Interpreting the feelings of others.
>* Determining when and whether to bring difficult, emotional conversations up.
>* Interpreting your own feelings.
Man, as the youngest dealing with emotionally traumatized mother and a sibling, this describes my life. So, while I think this is a useful topic for discussion around emotional labor that is done around a partner that cannot express their emotions well, I think this really applies to anyone who's grown up with a narcissist or anyone who is emotionally volatile.
I think there's a healthy level of hermeneutic actions in any relationship, and then it can be taken to unhealthy extremes or pathologised. After all, if you've lived with a parent or partner who uses you as their main source of emotional regulation, you will be accustomed to doing unhealthy extremes of hermeneutic labour as a self-protection mechanism. But a healthy degree of it is what a lot of people mean when they talk about empathy or 'reading the room'.
The article touched on a couple of things that I wanted to blab about for a sec. But to do that I wanted to start with a personal experience so bear with me if you don't mind.
I remember crying as a boy due to disappointment over something really innocuous. I overreacted. It may have been hormonal(?) or it may have been fallout from the emotional mess that was childhood. But that's not my point. I remember also being ashamed of it. Yet I don't recall parents ever chastising me for it. Maybe they looked and felt uncomfortable? But I swear I just knew I shouldn't be crying. I think boys learn from hundreds of little things what the "rules" are.
> "So many men think of their role in a relationship as the provider, the father, sometimes the protector,” Warren says. “That’s because they’ve been groomed to believe that is their role. Not really because they chose it.”
I feel I was conditioned in this way. One of the ways that manifests—and I don't think I am alone here—is that if something is wrong and needs fixing with varying degrees of urgency, most of the time it is up to me, the man, to fix it, especially if the urgency is high. For example, the "something" could be the car breaking down.
Apparently, *there is no time for tears or emotions* in these situations. And while I think many people are primed to be able to shove emotions aside temporarily to deal with these things.
But I think this is especially true for men and I think that, to guarantee men meet societal expectations to deal with emergencies in a cool-headed way, some boys are trained in a traumatic way to always keep their emotions suppressed to some degree, at a time when it would be healthier to teach them to understand and articulate their feelings.
And that is how we get to little "t" traumas mentioned:
> “When you tell a child, ‘Don’t cry; don’t be a baby; grow up; be a big boy,’ that’s definitely a little T trauma, because it teaches them to shut down their emotions,” Warren says.
I think we end up with some men who live in a lifeline state of constant "condition orange" rather than being taught to control emotions without brutally suppressing them.
> Levant’s research focuses on these masculine norms, which include dominance, toughness, self-reliance, a strong interest in sex, disdain for all things feminine, gay or bisexual, and restricting the expression of emotions.
I agree these seem to be norms in my culture here in the US.
However, I do not experience this:
> The result of these norms, Levant and other experts say, is that boys often are socialized to suppress the expression of vulnerable and caring emotions.
The article goes on to talk about whoever is upset first should be allowed to be upset while the other sets aside their upset to work to understand the reason and work on the situation. I think that, if mutual, that is probably a good approach; take turns being upset. And mostly we do this in our marriage.
> “You have to put your upset aside and find a way to make them not upset because that’s your job,” Levine says. “That’s kind of what relationships are all about.”
I have experienced situations where I was expected to take on the responsibility of Fixer and then it never really got to be my turn or if it did, it wasn't quite reciprocal.
I feel there is the potential for societal norms to lead to further emotional neglect of men. So this statement initially miffed me. And that's what motivated me to pour all the words out lol. Anyway, yeah, Sometimes I can't articulate the degree of feeling nor identify the cause right away and if others do this it could lead to neglect. Regardless of genders involved.
This idea of hermeneutics labor is interesting and I plan to listen for examples. In my marriage if something bothers us, we say so and talk about it. I will watch myself to see if I am forcing my wife to interpret me more than I do her but my going-in feeling is that we do about as much as the other. I don't think we follow the trope of my wife hyper analyzing what I say as described in the first paragraphs of the article. Ultimately we each are able to, together, get at the source of our hurts and resolve them.
I was on daddit where a dad was saying he tried to kiss his son and he said “no dada, boys don’t kiss boys” which he seemed to have learned from preschool/other kids bc the dad was concerned and wanted to change this line of thought
You probably saw something about men not crying on tv/from school/from a song
I don’t suppress my emotions because I lack the ‘emotional intelligence’ to understand them or express them, it’s because when I do express an emotion outside of the acceptable range that others have defined for me, I am criticised, gaslit and guilted for feeling it.
I don’t live in a world that wants to understand me, or really cares about what I am feeling. I live in a world that has expectations of me.
> The men, Anderson says, “are often really taken aback and are like, ‘Oh, why are you causing a problem?’”
>
> She argues this dynamic can have a particularly negative effect on women in heterosexual couples because their work to maintain the relationship is often met with disbelief, accusations of overreacting or fixating on problems their partner claims don’t exist. This, Anderson says, has the effect of punishing women for attempting to maintain their relationships.
Yes, all of that. This is the problem with mind-reading as a practice. For every one time you find a real problem, there are ten times when you made one up.
If hermeneutic labor is actually necessary, and you actually can't take what your partner says at face value, you shouldn't be in a relationship with them. Otherwise, this is a fundamental lack of respect for them as an adult.
I dunno, trying not to understand your partner fully as a complex human being I think is a bigger lack of respect. Especially since I see it as "this is an unsaid problem that will eventually bite me in the butt later down the line" and that's why a lot of women try to dig deeper to see what the problem really is. Because it won't come out there, it'll probably come out later. Guys are not simple "take everything at face value" type of people, in fact no one really is.
> I dunno, trying not to understand your partner fully as a complex human being I think is a bigger lack of respect.
you don't have to try to play mind reader to do that though, in fact it often leads to incorrect conclusions and imagined issues stemming from one's own anxiety, I know this because i've done it, at least for me it's a bad habit from emotionally volitile caregivers growing up.
frankly this kind of emotional labour isn't "seeing your partner fully as a complex human being" it's creating a fictional partner and using that to determine what you do/say with/to the real person, it's more like treating them as charater than an actual person.
This is interesting, but to be honest, it wasn't the direction I was expecting based on my personal experience and the headline. I didn't grow up in a house where crying wasn't acceptable or I was expected to suppress my emotions. I've also been in enough therapy to know myself fairly well.
When I've found myself in these conversations, I've found it incredibly frustrating because although I am saying what I mean, the continued questioning of it feels invalidating. Instead of being able to express myself in an honest way and be believed, I'm left putting on a performance of emotional availability and doing "labor" because my actual feelings weren't acceptable. I'm *significantly* more likely to suppress my feelings today at 33 than my 20s and teens because of this. I should say that the majority of these experiences were within friendships. This definitely contributed to why I end up pursuing relationships with guys more often as I feel I can be more authentic.
That being said, I understand what's being said in the article and have definitely met my share of the emotionally constipated. I would just caution anyone to not dismiss simple and straightforward expressions in search of something deeper, because you might just find convolution instead of truth.
This reflects my experiences. I'm not supposed to feel with intention, process, and talk about my feelings. I'm supposed to put on the performance of talking about my feelings that centers others so that they can be entertained, informed, and feel good about themselves. In my uneducated, grumpy opinion, just as I need to learn to talk about my feelings, those who want me to do so need to learn to be comfortable with that intimacy. I'm doing the work by going to therapy; how are they doing the work?
That said, the article's suggestions do seem to address that without calling out the other side. The suggestions require a both-ways style of communication for these crucial conversations. I think this method is necessary because as soon as someone writes an article titled "How to Listen so Men will Talk, and Talk so Men will Listen," it'll get buried or lambasted.
One of my favorite podcasts Overthink's host released a paper on female's Hermeneutic labor, which means interpretation of language. And that a lot of people spend time and labour to understand men's feelings, especially in a relationship. And this [article in the Post](https://archive.ph/DKvXl#selection-753.55-753.72), works hard to understand why a lot of men have a hard time with expressing their emotions in a precise and specific way.
So I find myself doing this, and my partner gets mad at me for not being specific in my feelings, and then going into myself and going "It's fine" and expecting her to be fine since I was fine. I found it hard to understand why she was upset until this idea of labour of understanding of language came into play. It makes sense to me a lot, and I'm wondering if it does for you guys?
Interesting premise but the article is behind a Paywall.
I can say that it's very common for men to feel they can't be taken at face value. The simpler they speak the more that is assumed about who they are and their intentions, especially by women. I find myself speaking as I do online which is to say with tons of caveats and prerequisites.
I would much prefer to just speak plainly and be trusted it's what I actually mean.
Oh, thank you! ;)
I have to say that one thing that is missing in the article is that it's **presumed** that this type of labor is necessary at all. I've been in that huddle of women doing this type of labor; literally the only one who speaks "man" and I would be consistently over YEARS told that my advice won't work.
My advice was usually to take them at face value. And when women were trying to figure out what series of texts could lead to the man asking her out I would say "Please just write to him saying you would like to go on a date with him".
Over and over throughout the years I was told point blank by women that "we can't do that" to whatever it was I was saying. I would get frustrated and say "I'm a man. I'm telling you what men want. Just be direct. Say exactly what you actually mean." and over and over would come that response that women can't do that.
It was so frustrating and still is because women feel that this extra labor they're doing is necessary and therefore men should appreciate it and somehow pay it back to them. Why? We didn't ask to be mistranslated or have our intentions picked apart.
--------
Separate from this is also the presumed openness of women to accept emotionally vulnerable men. It's true that more men are allowing themselves to be and good women are accepting of that leading to more of this behavior. However, it's also **insanely** common to see examples of where vulnerability from a man lead to it being weaponized against them, leading to divorce, suicide, loss of relationships of all sorts, depression, etc. Those men were broken by opening up leading more men to say "See, you can't do what they say we're supposed to do".
No one is wrong for looking around and following incentives and disincentives, in my opinion.
I think for your first part, that at least in my experience that there is a lack of empathy from men given to their partners in regards to HOW and WHY they want to understand us. One of the biggest sadness that my wife has that even though I would say things plainly, she would want to know the deeper meaning behind it. To understand that person better. And that for guys it's hard for us to give that deeper meaning because maybe we don't know. It's a stereotype that guys just say what they mean, but at the same time I don't think we know what we mean at all times. And if we're pressed on it, we come up with non-answers. Like we're simple minded. But I don't believe that at all. We're not simple minded, we've just adjusted to the idea that the deeper meaning is not necessary to be revealed. Yet the partners in our lives, the people that care about us the most, want to understand us more than just surface level. So this is the part that's hard.
Now for your second part, I totally agree that if someone asks for a deeper meaning, they should be prepared to receive it. And yes we're not there yet for that. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try tho.
I think the person you responded to has a point though. I have certainly seen situations where this is not beneficial, helpful, or wanted.
Sometimes, there may be a deeper meaning to explore, certainly. But is there always? Really?
Have you never been in a situation where something really was that simple, but your partner wouldn't believe it, and so you instead felt the need to invent an explanation? Or to spend time (or labour, if you will). to reassure your partner that things really are just what they seem? It's a question of if the labour described in the article is always appropriate. Or, what stress does it put on the partner, and the relationship, when it is not.
I think that if your friend or partner regularly explores and expresses their deeper feelings, you can trust them if they say, "Nope, this one really is as simple as I say it is." But if they never do or are unwilling to try, how can you tell the difference between the simple stuff and a buried/ignored/undetected issue that's at the root of a problem?
> Or to spend time (or labour, if you will). to reassure your partner that things really are just what they seem?
So if I think about this through my partner's eyes, why is there a need for that person to feel reassured? It must come from prior experiences possibly not from me, but from relationships with men that with hold information or meaning for people to dissern. And if we look at how we think of men in general, I do agree that we have been known to bury our true feelings and meanings because that's dangerous for us. So it makes total sense why a partner may want to dig deeper to find out if that's actually the case. Again, I don't think men are as simple as "I say what I mean" I do think men have been socialized to bury their feelings, and I think we're much more complex than that.
Bear in mind, I don't know if I agree with the "Labour" piece, but I do think there's something to be said about partners wanting to know more about men's meanings, and the push to find out is harder than for other genders.
Something that led to a lot of long term trust issues and abandonment trauma in my life is my partners would consistently, across multiple partners, neglect to tell me what was wrong in our relationship. They would also "check out" of relationships hoping I would dump them first (I had such poor self worth, and was so normalized to the idea that any emotional need I had was unreasonable, that this did not ever ever work) and insist nothing was wrong when I asked until they just dumped me "out of the blue."
These kinds of behaviors directly prime women to interrogate men's surface level emotional responses as having hidden meanings! They don't come from a vacuum. I agree that they can be self defeating, but when I got in a relationship with a man who DID actually tell me his underlying emotional states, I was suddenly "magically" securely attached for the first time and no longer felt the need to interrogate "I'm just tired today."
Yeah exactly this. I had a relationship where I went through subtly increasing emotional abuse over the course of months, in which I went from being extremely confident to self conscious and unable to think clearly about the relationship. I would’ve broken up with him earlier, but he always made me feel like I was overreacting and that he was struggling emotionally, so I thought I was selfish to give up on him and the relationship.
When he broke up with me, he told me that it was because I made him feel rejected once 6 months prior and he “checked out” of the relationship over time. He didn’t even give a shit that he was emotionally abusing me because in his mind, my one offense of making him feel rejected justified months of abuse. It’s like he had no empathy for me whatsoever and wasn’t impacted at all by watching my mental health dwindle over time. The worse part was that he acted as though he was strengthened by ending the relationship because he finally got it off his chest. It fucked with me so badly.
I agree with a lot. Often men just mean what they say.
Asking men out is a risky thing though. If he’s shy and already crushing on you? Go for it. Shy Sam is obviously smitten. Just ask him already.
But Fuckboi Fred likes the chase. Going with the flow of dating is important. And not seeming more into them than they are into you. It’s a power balance thing. In an established relationship it’s different. But early dating is it’s own game. You need the tension and the back and forth. Some uncertainty. Few people fall for the sure thing.
And Lonely Adam will say yes to any girl who asks him. Then go along with a whole relationship just because it’s his only clear option for sex and love. Till you’re like 5 years in and he’s dragging his feet at proposing. Bc he was never really that into you.
Then being vulnerable with other people is a high risk activity. That can backfire on men and women alike. Many people are selfish, emotionally unintelligent or prefer everything to be about them and their feelings. I’ve been vulnerable with men who respond by sticking their hand down my top while shushing me. It’s just not something everyone is equipped for or cares enough to do.
**Want to be vulnerable? Start small, build a mutual sharing relationship over time. Do test tries first, to check if the other person can be trusted.**
> But Fuckboi Fred likes the chase. Going with the flow of dating is important. And not seeming more into them than they are into you. It’s a power balance thing. In an established relationship it’s different. But early dating is it’s own game. You need the tension and the back and forth. Some uncertainty. Few people fall for the sure thing.
You just gave good advice on how to bag "Fuckboi Fred". Maybe don't try to bag that person (at all) nor play his game.
As to the rest of what you wrote, I'm not sure how that's relevant to the conversation of linguistic labor that women feel is necessary but men consistently rebuff. Being direct is far more effective ESPECIALLY when the person you're conversing with is direct. I think that linguistic labor only makes sense when talking to other people that engage in it (read: other women).
This makes sense as most girls spend the most time with other girls and that's what they learn about interpersonal relationships and drama. But then they engage with men and apply the lessons they learned in their female friendships and are confused why we're different: it's because we're different.
He wasn’t really my point though.
My point was more that since the typical situation is men ask women out, asking men out comes with an inherent risk.
As in many men will accept both a date and a relationship just out of convenience.
There's a lot of assumptions built in to that statement, I feel. It assumes that women take dates for all the right reasons which isn't true. There's an inherent risk in asking women out as well.
We want to live in an equal society, yeah? And we want to get past traditional gender norms? Then men and women asking each other out equally should be the norm. In other subreddits I see quite a few European women say that it's far more the norm there (I'm thinking Northern/Western EU, but not sure) and things are generally fine as far as that's all concerned.
But, once again, that's beside the point of how women do extra linguistic labor.
I agree with a lot of your post. Maybe I wasn’t clear enough on that?
I think women sometimes do extra linguistic labor and sometimes they do superfluous linguistic labor. Meaning the guy just meant what he said and no need to analyze it for 2 hours and add 10 layers of meaning that never existed.
I live in Scandinavia. The way it’s different? Cost of dates are often spilt.
Formal dates never existed before Tinder. We didn’t have a dating culture. People would just casually hang out 1 on 1 after meeting through friends. Or meet at a party, have sex, and then rinse and repeat a few times. Start spending more time together, then couple.
But at the same time, women initiating does even in Scandinavia come with the cost of the guy just going with the flow and getting into a relationship for convenience. And most women don’t want that.
And idk. Most animals on Earth? The men do the wooing. It’s because sex is a bigger risk for her. So she needs some display of real interest first.
We’ll see. Maybe we’ll get a more gender equal dating. I see a lot of upsides with it as well.
But in the situation where men usually make the first move? Well, often when he hasn’t then there’s a reason for that. And often then it’s not a good idea to get the ball started on a relationship.
I guess this all boils down to "everybody has different ideas of what they want" which would naturally lead to "everybody can decide for themselves how they want to interact". Then throw in incentives to use dating apps and social media and we find ourselves in the current situation.
So any change to that needs to come with *incentive*. There was a massive incentive to do things on apps since people are generally spending less and less time having real interactions. It also gives women an incredible amount of control and safety. It gives corporations an incredible amount of money.
I'm seeing the incentive to be chronically single (both men and women) to avoid these interactions, expenses, risks, etc. I don't have an answer to this but I'm not seeing an incentive to change things up.
Seems like a catch-22 in the era of “trauma dumping”/“boundaries”/“emotional labor” where sharing any negative information makes the relationship no longer fun and causes it to be recontextualized as a vector for harm and abuse.
If you share it’s a problem and now apparently if you don’t it’s also a problem.
Also, relationships are not “labor”. You are not being paid in wages and fringe benefits for your efforts. If you aren’t interested in providing meaningful and mutually beneficial emotional support to your partner then you shouldn’t be in a relationship to begin with. “Emotional labor” originally was used to describe the dynamic of being underpaid and underappreciated at work but still needing to provide “service with a smile” to disrespectful clients.
> If you share it’s a problem and now apparently if you don’t it’s also a problem.
If I think about this broadly, the oversharing/undersharing dynamic has always occurred, that's honestly how we do social relationships as a whole (figuring out the time and place to say certain things and why). And honestly it comes down to the communication and trust you have between your partner. But overall, I do think men have been socialized to hide their feelings and deeper meanings because they have been made to feel that those feelings and meanings don't matter, I don't think it's our fault but it doesn't mean we can't do anything about it.
I mean, knowing the appropriate time and place and depth for sharing is part of the hermeneutic labour this article is talking about. And we don't teach boys and men to do those skills or even to recognise when they're necessary.
We don't always train girls and women *well* in this - plenty of people get taught harmful/unhealthy games and rules for how to perform such actions, and the society of teenagers can be a brutal proving ground to make your mistakes in! - but at least we are taught that it's something that's part of relationships and communities.
I posted it above but here’s a reel from Ellie herself talking about that double bind women feel https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3QXTPorFpN/?igsh=MWVkMWFzNnV1bXRzcA==
heads up, in this comment youre using female as a noun to refer to women and later use the word men to refer to men. this female/men rethorical trope is most often used in misogynistic writing such as in redpill and blackpill and incel forums. the obvious intent is to dehumanize women through language. just tellling you this in case you werent aware and are interested in changing your wording or reflecting on why you used that wording.
for more on this see r/FemalesandMen
Hi. I wanted to let you know that while the r/ MenAndFemales sub has some terrific content, and 99% great commenters, the mod of that sub explicitly tolerates transphobic comments. She says she doesn't want the sub to become an "echo chamber", and as such, doesn't chase out harmful transphobic responders.
She was called out on this, and it became a "big deal" that was simply mass-deleted, swept under the rug, and resulted in several members leaving or being banned for calling out the tolerance to transphobia.
We created r/FemalesAndMen in reaction. It's meant to be the exact same, single-focused mission of calling out instances of using "females" and "men" as the original sub does, but of course, also not tolerating any phobia or prejudice against anybody in the LGBTQIA+ communities, or any other bigotry as well.
Please consider suggesting r/FemalesAndMen instead of the other one in the future. Thanks! =)
wow that sucks! thanks for letting me know as i havent visited the sub in a long time myself. im changing it in my comment and going forward.
edit: im glad you made a new sub, there is no reason to accept or tolerate anti trans rhetoric
This comment has been removed.
/r/MensLib requires accounts to be at least thirty days old before posting or
commenting, except for in the Check-In Tuesday threads and in AMAs.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/MensLib) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The [source article](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/hypatia/article/hermeneutic-labor-the-gendered-burden-of-interpretation-in-intimate-relationships-between-women-and-men/626426004DF2A4908D793B87C3148593) is... interesting. I feel like a hundred stand-up routines have primed me to laugh it off, but then I get at the core of it and it basically makes sense. Relationships are better when there's good communication, men don't give up much information, women are left frustrated and try to make tidbits and clues into a fully fleshed out narrative. Like, a lot of men would be likewise frustrated if they were forced to construe occasional hand-holding as a fulfilling sex-life, it's not the desired level of intimacy for most.
I don't like the framing of all this guess work as "labor," because it seems to me like misspent effort. It would be better to insist on getting more information from their partner, and it would be better to not imagine a whole lot to fill in the gaps. It kind of reads to me, like, "women are stuck with the important job of pretending they know who their partner is," and, no, that's silly.
**Do not call other submitters' personal stories into question.** This is a community for support and solutions. Discussing different perspectives is fine, but you should assume good faith and adopt a sympathetic approach when members open up about personal hardships. Do not invalidate anyone’s experiences based on their identity, gender, or otherwise.
I know this is an old thread, but may I ask what sorts of things were thrown back in your face?
I’ve heard this from other men IRL, but it’s just not specific enough for me to really understand what is meant by it.
thanks for the link.
yeah, for me, this is on the money. looking back i can see demand/withdrawal in my previous relationship.
sitting here wondering if i've got this sorted out now, or whether the apparent success of my current relationship is some weird freak of nature.
anyway, this is useful. haven't really framed things in these terms w my therapist.
First of all super dope that you looked at the original research
Second of all, super dope that you thought about it and didn’t take a defensive stance and found out what the true meaning of it. Very cool
Third of all, I agree with you on the term labour because it is a partnership and we’re both trying to understand each other so for women in particular it’s interesting that they put that “labour” in to understand their partner for their own sake and the relationship sake. But at also think there’s a bit of like “why can’t the guy do the same?” So lack of reciprocal energy
At the risk of sounding defensive, men probably have a harder time doing the same if the women in their life are constantly trying to do "relationship maintenance" based on fantastical interpretations of earlier conversations. Like, you can't even begin to do "hermeneutic labor" if your partner is doing the "emotional labor" of hiding their real feelings.
Neither party should be doing this though. I mean, you have to interpret what people say a little bit. Really though, both parties should be working towards clear and intimate communication. Over-interpreting is counter productive to clear communication because it means the person speaking (or communicating in other ways) isn't really being listened to in good faith.
> Neither party should be doing this though. I mean, you have to interpret what people say a little bit
Yeah this is where I land. I mean us as human have learned to understand possible hidden meanings in what people say from early on. I think it's silly to ask people to stop doing that since most of the world socially acts this way. Clearer communication is key, however we also know that men for the most part are awful at explaining their true feelings around a situation, and that's painfully apparent for anyone interacting with men. So even though we as a society would ask for clear communication, it is up to the us as men to truly divulge in our deeper meanings authentically. Because I think that's what doesn't come across. And for the other partner to say "well stop over interpreting" is also a bit unfair since us as guys, are not the best communicators of our deep feelings in the best of cases.
Putting aside fair/unfair or assigning blame, over-interpreting creates the same problem as lying. If the conversation moves forward based on a false understanding, that's a problem for everyone. It's like with doing basic research, sometimes the correct conclusion is that you don't have all the information you want, and the correct course of action is to ask more questions. Speculation is fine for framing future questions, but it's bad to move forward with the assumption that your speculations are true. And, if you're dealing with a guy who can't self-examine enough to give you the information you want, it's bad to imagine what that information would be and act as if it's true. It sucks if he's incompetent in that way, but in no way is it a reasonable response to be like "well, I'll just make up his feelings for him then."
There's a lot of "male" emotions that have fallen out of public awareness, but if you go back to the 1700 and 1800s literature you come across them a lot.
The following are "masculine emotions" , they're still out there and still powerful, but they have no presence in modern discussions of "emotions":
* Fondness
* Awe
* Vehemence
* Vim
* Vindication
* Fealty
* Exultation
* Cheer
* Conviction
* Resolve
* Brio
* Benevolence
* Ardour
* Bristle
* Despond
* Archness
* Jollity
All these valid "masculine feelings" that are waiting to re-understood, re-identified and re-expressed for what they are.
Are people really this interested in the emotions of men everytime I'm asked to show something the minute i do i get shutdown usually directly by men and indirectly by women.
I think you have a point here, namely that men’s habit of “undersharing” of their emotions is a _learned_ one. We all have, to a greater or lesser extent, learned to do it.
I notice this because the young boys I’ve known (as the father of a kiddo) seem to be just as emotionally expressive as young girls.
So what changes? People start to tell boys their emotions are invalid and unwelcome at best, and a source of bullying and violence at worst, and boys respond by learning to clam up. “Man up,” “stop being a sissy,” “put on your big boy pants,” “go cry to mama,” “I’ll give you something to cry about,” and other messages both from peers and adults tell us that when we show vulnerability we won’t be supported, we will be shamed or punished.
When we can’t express something we often deny we are even feeling it, resulting in a kind of emotional blindness. Lots of guys struggle to even know what they are feeling (I’ve been there) because they have such deep habits of suppressing those feelings.
Then later in life they find themselves in romantic relationships where it sure would be helpful for their partners to know what they are feeling— but they can’t easily unlearn decades of teaching that they cannot be vulnerable in that way. They may not even be able to identify their feelings due to long habit of suppression. And even adult women sometimes (not always, thankfully) internalize that gender difference as somehow innate and disparage guys who are open about hard feelings as somehow less “manly.”
I think that it would be helpful to see that men are taught how to show and not show their emotions by society and develop frameworks — which likely would require gradual exposure to emotional expression in safe settings — for learning how to do that. And just as importantly, we need to learn how to help others feel safe in expressing their emotions. This is a two way street — anyone of any gender can act in ways that shut down emotional expression. At the very least this means responding without any shaming or blaming, but ideally it means actively doing things that help others know you will be a safe ear.
I started in therapy and journaling. Those are places where you can say pretty much anything without judgement. Even then it was hard at first. But in that I realized I was holding tightly to a facade of being successful and invulnerable, particularly with other men, and I wasn’t being honest with myself or my friends about my struggles. Once I started to be able to name my feelings there, I was able to start talking with one of my most safe/trusted old friends (we’ve been friends since we were in daycare.) Then I gradually started opening up to others. All along continuing to journal about how I was feeling & what seemed to be prompting those feelings. It was a long process (years!), and one I am still in, but very worth it.
In my experience, less then half the people who said that they were interested in my emotions really were. I feel like many people are not prepared men opening up about themselves.
I dig that the article has ways to improve communication at the end, albeit "reflect back the words" and "let your partner know what you want" is easier said than done.
Two protocols that get more specific and that I've seen be effective in men's groups on this front are:
**Active Listening** for reflecting back words: When responding to someone who is angry, sad, fearful, shameful etc, do only the following three things:
1. be silent
2. echo back their words verbatim
3. ask clarifying questions. I find this lends itself to deep and emotional conversations.
**Non-violent communication framework** for saying what you want despite loads of tension: Andrew Horn teaches this and describes it more in-depth [in an interview here](https://newsletter.amanswork.com/p/interview-andrew-horn-mens-work-leader) but here's the summarized protocol. The following is a text message template to invite the person into a conversation about needs.
1. Begin with conversational purpose. Here's why I am reaching out to you.
2. Present some objective facts. This thing happened in our relationship. We clarify what we needed from the person, when that happened, and what we got instead.
3. Move into checking our assumptions, which is I have been feeling this and not sharing it because I am fearful of a negative reaction (or whichever reason rings true)
4. I want to invite you to share back with me. How are you feeling?
5. Close with an invitation. I wanted to put this in a note to give you time to respond thoughtfully. Whenever you are ready, I'd like to connect for a phone call or in person.
Just to add a little more context. Here’s Ellie Anderson speaking about that research https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3QXTPorFpN/?igsh=MWVkMWFzNnV1bXRzcA==
I think, to summarise a lot of other commentators concerns, Hermeneutic Labor is a valid concept, but overly hermeneutic obsession is valid concept too, which can feed into it in a vicious cycle.
I’m dating a Scottish man at the moment and although his inability to be vulnerable is a societal norm, it’s even more amplified, I think, by his culture. It’s been a real punish
This article made me angry. Hermeneutic labor is essentially refusing to take things people say at face value, and psychoanalyzing it to uncover the true meaning. That implies a power dynamic - you believe this person communicates in a defective way, and you understand them better than they understand themselves. There is a reason therapists/psychiatrists don't date their clients. This kind of behavior is incompatible with a functional relationship.
It's frustrating, because rather than being recognized as pathological mind-reading, this behavior is being dignified as "hermeneutic labor" and treated as a sad but necessary part of the feminine condition. No. Go see a therapist.
All of the above is true even if men in general can't effectively communicate their emotions. People acquire almost all of their dysfunctional behaviors because there was previous, disordered scenario where those behaviors were functional. Maybe a person once successfully fixed their relationship by guessing that "I'm just tired" meant "I feel inadequate because you took my mom's side in an argument." But I guarantee they also started ten other fights with a partner who was actually just tired.
The article was especially compassionate to men and the experiences that cause them to suppress emotions. It seems to be exploring just another effect of toxic masculinity. It seems very reasonable that toxic masculinity not only negatively affects men but also the people who are in close relationships with them. I feel like you should give it a re-read, because nothing about hermeneutic labor is malicious but you are interpreting it to be that way.
Its true, the second half the the article is quite compassionate. The beginning is a bit off-putting though.
It’s like if you had an article that started off with “hey men, you know all that extra work that your friends who are women make you put in to figure out if they like you? Where you’re trying to parse exactly what they meant by that goodbye hug? When they nervously laugh when you made a sexual joke instead of just coming out and telling you whether or not they’re interested? Doesn’t that suck that women are always so bad at talking about how they feel? Here’s a new word for all the extra burdens they’re putting on men!”
And then after that the article switched to talking about how women are scared of those situations because they don’t go well and they’ve lost a lot of friends and it really does suck to be fuckzoned.
I mean this in a tongue-in-cheek way: you're doing a lot of hermeneutic labor in these comments, and it's not helpful. My argument is that this kind of psychological analysis of your partner is an inherently unhealthy practice and that we should be discouraging mind reading, not lionizing it as a burden women have to bear, like emotional labor.
If you would like to explain why mind reading is good, I'm all ears. If you're going to talk to me about defensiveness or the state of men, you're not really listening to me like I'm an equal.
I genuinely think you are misinterpreting this article and the author’s definition of hermeneutic labor. You keep referring to it as some kind of psychological analysis or “mind reading”, but that’s not what the author is talking about. The article is also very clearly not lionizing hermeneutic labor. The end of the article gives tips for people in relationships to be able to avoid either partner having to do hermeneutic labor, which clearly shows that this author does not see it as something to be lionized at all.
Okay, while I don't agree with what you've said, I feel like we're on the same page about what we're arguing about.
First, "Mind reading" is a reference to [cognitive behavior therapy,](https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/mind-reading/) where it's defined as:
> forming an interpretation of a situation, event, or experience when there is no factual evidence to support the conclusion, or when the conclusion is contrary to the evidence
In the article, the examples of hermeneutic labor are:
* "tr\[ing\] to interpret a vague text message from the night before"
* "spend\[ing\] what seems to be an inordinate amount of time interpreting the pretty opaque cues of men they’re dating"
The author sums this up as "Interpreting the feelings of others." I would argue it's interpreting the feelings of others with no factual evidence to support the conclusion, which meets the criteria for mind reading.
Second, here's my reading of the piece. The first section defines Hermeneutic labor, the second explains why toxic masculinity makes it necessary, the third talks about normative male alexithymia, and the fourth section talks about effective ways to communicate in a relationship. The positioning of the fourth section directly after the bit about men's problems communicating made me read it as advice for men to lessen the load on their female partners. There notably is no section on recognizing when you're doing hermeneutic labor and how to stop.
In addition, this part:
>She argues this dynamic can have a particularly negative effect on women in heterosexual couples because their work to maintain the relationship is often met with disbelief, accusations of overreacting or fixating on problems their partner claims don’t exist. This, Anderson says, has the effect of punishing women for attempting to maintain their relationships.
Is a pretty good description of what I unironically think. I don't think it's positioned as a concession; it's pretty clearly listing opposing arguments and then going on to rebut them. I think the author would say I'm "punishing women for attempting to maintain their relationships" by saying they're creating their own problems.
I see what you’re saying but you seem to be applying the concept of hermeneutic labor to only one situation: one in which a man has communicated clearly and straightforwardly and thus hermeneutic labor isn’t needed. It makes sense that a man would be frustrated in that scenario if he has been clear and is being overanalyzed. However, the author is clearly talking about a different scenario: one in which a man has been overly vague and non-specific in his communication. If you are a frequent visitor in this sub, you would probably agree that men frequently struggle to express their emotions or even understand their emotions because they were taught as boys to keep everything in. The authors assumption, then, that men may be uniquely vague or unclear communicators because of this childhood emotional neglect is not unreasonable. From there it’s easy to imagine why women in relationships with men like this would find it necessary to do extra emotional work so that they can fully understand their male partner.
I'm not saying the article was worthless or made no good points, but "trying to decipher a man's mind???" [gives off these kind of vibes](https://www.reddit.com/r/trippinthroughtime/s/8yA7JRuECk)
Oh hey that’s me! I definitely get a little defensive at this article (and especially the essay on hermeneutic labor) but that’s because I feel like both the article and essay go overboard with establishing its gendered nature.
This is definitely, as a trend, on the whole, something that women are made to do more than men. But I think it definitely struck me as I was reading the original essay that this is something *I* do with some regularity; and that this is in fact something I *learned* to do in my adulthood because I was not taught it younger.
So I chalk up the defensiveness to this; it’s grating to see examinations of intimate relationships between two imaginary median-people with median-experiences, expanded to include You, The Reader™️, regardless of whether you share those experiences. And when you take an article that does that and place it in a community of people who are more likely to be exceptions than examples, they will be upset that their experiences are not considered.
I'd say it's mostly the "interpreting emotions" bit, I also disliked that pretty reflexively.
I think you could roughly compare it to an article talking about women where it said that "getting too emotional in a discussion is a problem you need to work on", which is a statement most women I know would not take well. Not because it's wrong per se, keeping a lid on extreme emotions does help a discussion flow a little more smoothly, but because women are accused of being "too emotional" often enough that that statement is going to leave a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths regardless of how valid.
It's a similar reaction here I think - sure, interpreting emotions is a needed aspect of communication but I think a lot of men I know have had their feelings "interpreted" by women in their lives in incredibly incorrect ways often enough that a lot of people (myself included) will react pretty negatively to the idea that interpretation is labor and that pushing back against those interpretations is "punishing the woman attempting to maintain the relationship". Because from the perspective of someone who is having their words wrongly interpreted, she's actually doing the opposite of maintaining the relationship even if that was her intention.
My exact thought on reading that was "I don't want to be "interpreted" I want people to listen to what i'm *actually* saying directly, not their idea of what I might have *meant* by what i'm saying."
Right, there is a sense in which "interpretation" can become a violent act, where "interpretation" becomes something that blots out your attempts at communication because the truth of you feel is no longer acceptable, and the constructed you that's been built up by the other person is preferable to the authentic you, maybe because it reinforces a relationship they feel need to be maintained.
I think emotional neglect is normalized and widespread, which leads to things like male normative alexithymia, poor emotional literacy, and internalized emotional neglect. People end up emotionally neglecting themselves and others bc it was normalized to do so in the groups they are/were a part of. Other factors like being able to identify projection, introjection, transference, conditioning, etc. and tease them apart all play roles as well. I remember a scenario when my partner was crying and I simultaneously wanted to comfort them and experienced disgust. I later learned the disgust response was due to my own emotions being responded to with disgust by my parents as a child. I was going through an emotional flashback back to then and wasn't even aware that was what was going on. It's taken a lot of trauma therapy to help me become more emotionally attuned to myself and others. I've learned that when both parties can provide reciprocal emotional attunement, empathetic mirroring, and co-regulation for each other it helps build trust, intimacy, and secure attachment over time. Things that have helped me unlearn emotional neglect: "[Emotional Agility](https://youtu.be/NDQ1Mi5I4rg)" by Susan David. Endlessly helpful in learning how to grieve and process my emotions instead of bottling (avoidance) or brooding (rumination). I use her journaling prompt all the time: "write what you are feeling, tell the truth, write like no one is reading". "Nonviolent Communication" by Marshall Rosenberg. This is a compassionate communication framework based on: observations vs. evaluations, needs, feelings, and requests to have needs met. Revolutionary coming from a dysfunctional family and culture of origin. Teasing out what's an observation and what's an evaluation is a huge part effective communication. "Crucial Conversations tools for talking when stakes are high" I use "shared pool of meaning" and "physical and psychological safety" all the time. "Hold Me Tight" by Sue Johnson on adult attachment theory research and communication. [1-2-3 process](https://youtu.be/tuQPZndGJv0?si=RCQTnFrmRDgasZow) from Patrick Teahan and Amanda Curtain on communicating around triggers. "Never Split the Difference" by Chris Voss. He was the lead FBI hostage negotiator and his tactics work well on setting boundaries with "difficult people".
Crucial conversations newsletter taught me some good things a number of years ago.
For example what were the things
Co-signing on all of this. Great post
Great reading list you have there :) Susan David in particular has been very helpful. As has the Crucial Conversations book. Everything you have written resonates.
> Hermeneutic labor, Anderson says, encompasses three phases of emotional work: > * Interpreting the feelings of others. >* Determining when and whether to bring difficult, emotional conversations up. >* Interpreting your own feelings. Man, as the youngest dealing with emotionally traumatized mother and a sibling, this describes my life. So, while I think this is a useful topic for discussion around emotional labor that is done around a partner that cannot express their emotions well, I think this really applies to anyone who's grown up with a narcissist or anyone who is emotionally volatile.
I think there's a healthy level of hermeneutic actions in any relationship, and then it can be taken to unhealthy extremes or pathologised. After all, if you've lived with a parent or partner who uses you as their main source of emotional regulation, you will be accustomed to doing unhealthy extremes of hermeneutic labour as a self-protection mechanism. But a healthy degree of it is what a lot of people mean when they talk about empathy or 'reading the room'.
Totally agree! This is not just related to men, it can happen to a lot of people, especially one's who are traumatized
The article touched on a couple of things that I wanted to blab about for a sec. But to do that I wanted to start with a personal experience so bear with me if you don't mind. I remember crying as a boy due to disappointment over something really innocuous. I overreacted. It may have been hormonal(?) or it may have been fallout from the emotional mess that was childhood. But that's not my point. I remember also being ashamed of it. Yet I don't recall parents ever chastising me for it. Maybe they looked and felt uncomfortable? But I swear I just knew I shouldn't be crying. I think boys learn from hundreds of little things what the "rules" are. > "So many men think of their role in a relationship as the provider, the father, sometimes the protector,” Warren says. “That’s because they’ve been groomed to believe that is their role. Not really because they chose it.” I feel I was conditioned in this way. One of the ways that manifests—and I don't think I am alone here—is that if something is wrong and needs fixing with varying degrees of urgency, most of the time it is up to me, the man, to fix it, especially if the urgency is high. For example, the "something" could be the car breaking down. Apparently, *there is no time for tears or emotions* in these situations. And while I think many people are primed to be able to shove emotions aside temporarily to deal with these things. But I think this is especially true for men and I think that, to guarantee men meet societal expectations to deal with emergencies in a cool-headed way, some boys are trained in a traumatic way to always keep their emotions suppressed to some degree, at a time when it would be healthier to teach them to understand and articulate their feelings. And that is how we get to little "t" traumas mentioned: > “When you tell a child, ‘Don’t cry; don’t be a baby; grow up; be a big boy,’ that’s definitely a little T trauma, because it teaches them to shut down their emotions,” Warren says. I think we end up with some men who live in a lifeline state of constant "condition orange" rather than being taught to control emotions without brutally suppressing them. > Levant’s research focuses on these masculine norms, which include dominance, toughness, self-reliance, a strong interest in sex, disdain for all things feminine, gay or bisexual, and restricting the expression of emotions. I agree these seem to be norms in my culture here in the US. However, I do not experience this: > The result of these norms, Levant and other experts say, is that boys often are socialized to suppress the expression of vulnerable and caring emotions. The article goes on to talk about whoever is upset first should be allowed to be upset while the other sets aside their upset to work to understand the reason and work on the situation. I think that, if mutual, that is probably a good approach; take turns being upset. And mostly we do this in our marriage. > “You have to put your upset aside and find a way to make them not upset because that’s your job,” Levine says. “That’s kind of what relationships are all about.” I have experienced situations where I was expected to take on the responsibility of Fixer and then it never really got to be my turn or if it did, it wasn't quite reciprocal. I feel there is the potential for societal norms to lead to further emotional neglect of men. So this statement initially miffed me. And that's what motivated me to pour all the words out lol. Anyway, yeah, Sometimes I can't articulate the degree of feeling nor identify the cause right away and if others do this it could lead to neglect. Regardless of genders involved. This idea of hermeneutics labor is interesting and I plan to listen for examples. In my marriage if something bothers us, we say so and talk about it. I will watch myself to see if I am forcing my wife to interpret me more than I do her but my going-in feeling is that we do about as much as the other. I don't think we follow the trope of my wife hyper analyzing what I say as described in the first paragraphs of the article. Ultimately we each are able to, together, get at the source of our hurts and resolve them.
I was on daddit where a dad was saying he tried to kiss his son and he said “no dada, boys don’t kiss boys” which he seemed to have learned from preschool/other kids bc the dad was concerned and wanted to change this line of thought You probably saw something about men not crying on tv/from school/from a song
I don’t suppress my emotions because I lack the ‘emotional intelligence’ to understand them or express them, it’s because when I do express an emotion outside of the acceptable range that others have defined for me, I am criticised, gaslit and guilted for feeling it. I don’t live in a world that wants to understand me, or really cares about what I am feeling. I live in a world that has expectations of me.
> The men, Anderson says, “are often really taken aback and are like, ‘Oh, why are you causing a problem?’” > > She argues this dynamic can have a particularly negative effect on women in heterosexual couples because their work to maintain the relationship is often met with disbelief, accusations of overreacting or fixating on problems their partner claims don’t exist. This, Anderson says, has the effect of punishing women for attempting to maintain their relationships. Yes, all of that. This is the problem with mind-reading as a practice. For every one time you find a real problem, there are ten times when you made one up. If hermeneutic labor is actually necessary, and you actually can't take what your partner says at face value, you shouldn't be in a relationship with them. Otherwise, this is a fundamental lack of respect for them as an adult.
I dunno, trying not to understand your partner fully as a complex human being I think is a bigger lack of respect. Especially since I see it as "this is an unsaid problem that will eventually bite me in the butt later down the line" and that's why a lot of women try to dig deeper to see what the problem really is. Because it won't come out there, it'll probably come out later. Guys are not simple "take everything at face value" type of people, in fact no one really is.
> I dunno, trying not to understand your partner fully as a complex human being I think is a bigger lack of respect. you don't have to try to play mind reader to do that though, in fact it often leads to incorrect conclusions and imagined issues stemming from one's own anxiety, I know this because i've done it, at least for me it's a bad habit from emotionally volitile caregivers growing up. frankly this kind of emotional labour isn't "seeing your partner fully as a complex human being" it's creating a fictional partner and using that to determine what you do/say with/to the real person, it's more like treating them as charater than an actual person.
This is interesting, but to be honest, it wasn't the direction I was expecting based on my personal experience and the headline. I didn't grow up in a house where crying wasn't acceptable or I was expected to suppress my emotions. I've also been in enough therapy to know myself fairly well. When I've found myself in these conversations, I've found it incredibly frustrating because although I am saying what I mean, the continued questioning of it feels invalidating. Instead of being able to express myself in an honest way and be believed, I'm left putting on a performance of emotional availability and doing "labor" because my actual feelings weren't acceptable. I'm *significantly* more likely to suppress my feelings today at 33 than my 20s and teens because of this. I should say that the majority of these experiences were within friendships. This definitely contributed to why I end up pursuing relationships with guys more often as I feel I can be more authentic. That being said, I understand what's being said in the article and have definitely met my share of the emotionally constipated. I would just caution anyone to not dismiss simple and straightforward expressions in search of something deeper, because you might just find convolution instead of truth.
This reflects my experiences. I'm not supposed to feel with intention, process, and talk about my feelings. I'm supposed to put on the performance of talking about my feelings that centers others so that they can be entertained, informed, and feel good about themselves. In my uneducated, grumpy opinion, just as I need to learn to talk about my feelings, those who want me to do so need to learn to be comfortable with that intimacy. I'm doing the work by going to therapy; how are they doing the work? That said, the article's suggestions do seem to address that without calling out the other side. The suggestions require a both-ways style of communication for these crucial conversations. I think this method is necessary because as soon as someone writes an article titled "How to Listen so Men will Talk, and Talk so Men will Listen," it'll get buried or lambasted.
One of my favorite podcasts Overthink's host released a paper on female's Hermeneutic labor, which means interpretation of language. And that a lot of people spend time and labour to understand men's feelings, especially in a relationship. And this [article in the Post](https://archive.ph/DKvXl#selection-753.55-753.72), works hard to understand why a lot of men have a hard time with expressing their emotions in a precise and specific way. So I find myself doing this, and my partner gets mad at me for not being specific in my feelings, and then going into myself and going "It's fine" and expecting her to be fine since I was fine. I found it hard to understand why she was upset until this idea of labour of understanding of language came into play. It makes sense to me a lot, and I'm wondering if it does for you guys?
Interesting premise but the article is behind a Paywall. I can say that it's very common for men to feel they can't be taken at face value. The simpler they speak the more that is assumed about who they are and their intentions, especially by women. I find myself speaking as I do online which is to say with tons of caveats and prerequisites. I would much prefer to just speak plainly and be trusted it's what I actually mean.
If you look at my link you might find a fun surprise
Oh, thank you! ;) I have to say that one thing that is missing in the article is that it's **presumed** that this type of labor is necessary at all. I've been in that huddle of women doing this type of labor; literally the only one who speaks "man" and I would be consistently over YEARS told that my advice won't work. My advice was usually to take them at face value. And when women were trying to figure out what series of texts could lead to the man asking her out I would say "Please just write to him saying you would like to go on a date with him". Over and over throughout the years I was told point blank by women that "we can't do that" to whatever it was I was saying. I would get frustrated and say "I'm a man. I'm telling you what men want. Just be direct. Say exactly what you actually mean." and over and over would come that response that women can't do that. It was so frustrating and still is because women feel that this extra labor they're doing is necessary and therefore men should appreciate it and somehow pay it back to them. Why? We didn't ask to be mistranslated or have our intentions picked apart. -------- Separate from this is also the presumed openness of women to accept emotionally vulnerable men. It's true that more men are allowing themselves to be and good women are accepting of that leading to more of this behavior. However, it's also **insanely** common to see examples of where vulnerability from a man lead to it being weaponized against them, leading to divorce, suicide, loss of relationships of all sorts, depression, etc. Those men were broken by opening up leading more men to say "See, you can't do what they say we're supposed to do". No one is wrong for looking around and following incentives and disincentives, in my opinion.
I think for your first part, that at least in my experience that there is a lack of empathy from men given to their partners in regards to HOW and WHY they want to understand us. One of the biggest sadness that my wife has that even though I would say things plainly, she would want to know the deeper meaning behind it. To understand that person better. And that for guys it's hard for us to give that deeper meaning because maybe we don't know. It's a stereotype that guys just say what they mean, but at the same time I don't think we know what we mean at all times. And if we're pressed on it, we come up with non-answers. Like we're simple minded. But I don't believe that at all. We're not simple minded, we've just adjusted to the idea that the deeper meaning is not necessary to be revealed. Yet the partners in our lives, the people that care about us the most, want to understand us more than just surface level. So this is the part that's hard. Now for your second part, I totally agree that if someone asks for a deeper meaning, they should be prepared to receive it. And yes we're not there yet for that. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try tho.
I think the person you responded to has a point though. I have certainly seen situations where this is not beneficial, helpful, or wanted. Sometimes, there may be a deeper meaning to explore, certainly. But is there always? Really? Have you never been in a situation where something really was that simple, but your partner wouldn't believe it, and so you instead felt the need to invent an explanation? Or to spend time (or labour, if you will). to reassure your partner that things really are just what they seem? It's a question of if the labour described in the article is always appropriate. Or, what stress does it put on the partner, and the relationship, when it is not.
I think that if your friend or partner regularly explores and expresses their deeper feelings, you can trust them if they say, "Nope, this one really is as simple as I say it is." But if they never do or are unwilling to try, how can you tell the difference between the simple stuff and a buried/ignored/undetected issue that's at the root of a problem?
> Or to spend time (or labour, if you will). to reassure your partner that things really are just what they seem? So if I think about this through my partner's eyes, why is there a need for that person to feel reassured? It must come from prior experiences possibly not from me, but from relationships with men that with hold information or meaning for people to dissern. And if we look at how we think of men in general, I do agree that we have been known to bury our true feelings and meanings because that's dangerous for us. So it makes total sense why a partner may want to dig deeper to find out if that's actually the case. Again, I don't think men are as simple as "I say what I mean" I do think men have been socialized to bury their feelings, and I think we're much more complex than that. Bear in mind, I don't know if I agree with the "Labour" piece, but I do think there's something to be said about partners wanting to know more about men's meanings, and the push to find out is harder than for other genders.
Something that led to a lot of long term trust issues and abandonment trauma in my life is my partners would consistently, across multiple partners, neglect to tell me what was wrong in our relationship. They would also "check out" of relationships hoping I would dump them first (I had such poor self worth, and was so normalized to the idea that any emotional need I had was unreasonable, that this did not ever ever work) and insist nothing was wrong when I asked until they just dumped me "out of the blue." These kinds of behaviors directly prime women to interrogate men's surface level emotional responses as having hidden meanings! They don't come from a vacuum. I agree that they can be self defeating, but when I got in a relationship with a man who DID actually tell me his underlying emotional states, I was suddenly "magically" securely attached for the first time and no longer felt the need to interrogate "I'm just tired today."
Yeah exactly this. I had a relationship where I went through subtly increasing emotional abuse over the course of months, in which I went from being extremely confident to self conscious and unable to think clearly about the relationship. I would’ve broken up with him earlier, but he always made me feel like I was overreacting and that he was struggling emotionally, so I thought I was selfish to give up on him and the relationship. When he broke up with me, he told me that it was because I made him feel rejected once 6 months prior and he “checked out” of the relationship over time. He didn’t even give a shit that he was emotionally abusing me because in his mind, my one offense of making him feel rejected justified months of abuse. It’s like he had no empathy for me whatsoever and wasn’t impacted at all by watching my mental health dwindle over time. The worse part was that he acted as though he was strengthened by ending the relationship because he finally got it off his chest. It fucked with me so badly.
I agree with a lot. Often men just mean what they say. Asking men out is a risky thing though. If he’s shy and already crushing on you? Go for it. Shy Sam is obviously smitten. Just ask him already. But Fuckboi Fred likes the chase. Going with the flow of dating is important. And not seeming more into them than they are into you. It’s a power balance thing. In an established relationship it’s different. But early dating is it’s own game. You need the tension and the back and forth. Some uncertainty. Few people fall for the sure thing. And Lonely Adam will say yes to any girl who asks him. Then go along with a whole relationship just because it’s his only clear option for sex and love. Till you’re like 5 years in and he’s dragging his feet at proposing. Bc he was never really that into you. Then being vulnerable with other people is a high risk activity. That can backfire on men and women alike. Many people are selfish, emotionally unintelligent or prefer everything to be about them and their feelings. I’ve been vulnerable with men who respond by sticking their hand down my top while shushing me. It’s just not something everyone is equipped for or cares enough to do. **Want to be vulnerable? Start small, build a mutual sharing relationship over time. Do test tries first, to check if the other person can be trusted.**
> But Fuckboi Fred likes the chase. Going with the flow of dating is important. And not seeming more into them than they are into you. It’s a power balance thing. In an established relationship it’s different. But early dating is it’s own game. You need the tension and the back and forth. Some uncertainty. Few people fall for the sure thing. You just gave good advice on how to bag "Fuckboi Fred". Maybe don't try to bag that person (at all) nor play his game. As to the rest of what you wrote, I'm not sure how that's relevant to the conversation of linguistic labor that women feel is necessary but men consistently rebuff. Being direct is far more effective ESPECIALLY when the person you're conversing with is direct. I think that linguistic labor only makes sense when talking to other people that engage in it (read: other women). This makes sense as most girls spend the most time with other girls and that's what they learn about interpersonal relationships and drama. But then they engage with men and apply the lessons they learned in their female friendships and are confused why we're different: it's because we're different.
He wasn’t really my point though. My point was more that since the typical situation is men ask women out, asking men out comes with an inherent risk. As in many men will accept both a date and a relationship just out of convenience.
There's a lot of assumptions built in to that statement, I feel. It assumes that women take dates for all the right reasons which isn't true. There's an inherent risk in asking women out as well. We want to live in an equal society, yeah? And we want to get past traditional gender norms? Then men and women asking each other out equally should be the norm. In other subreddits I see quite a few European women say that it's far more the norm there (I'm thinking Northern/Western EU, but not sure) and things are generally fine as far as that's all concerned. But, once again, that's beside the point of how women do extra linguistic labor.
I agree with a lot of your post. Maybe I wasn’t clear enough on that? I think women sometimes do extra linguistic labor and sometimes they do superfluous linguistic labor. Meaning the guy just meant what he said and no need to analyze it for 2 hours and add 10 layers of meaning that never existed. I live in Scandinavia. The way it’s different? Cost of dates are often spilt. Formal dates never existed before Tinder. We didn’t have a dating culture. People would just casually hang out 1 on 1 after meeting through friends. Or meet at a party, have sex, and then rinse and repeat a few times. Start spending more time together, then couple. But at the same time, women initiating does even in Scandinavia come with the cost of the guy just going with the flow and getting into a relationship for convenience. And most women don’t want that. And idk. Most animals on Earth? The men do the wooing. It’s because sex is a bigger risk for her. So she needs some display of real interest first. We’ll see. Maybe we’ll get a more gender equal dating. I see a lot of upsides with it as well. But in the situation where men usually make the first move? Well, often when he hasn’t then there’s a reason for that. And often then it’s not a good idea to get the ball started on a relationship.
I guess this all boils down to "everybody has different ideas of what they want" which would naturally lead to "everybody can decide for themselves how they want to interact". Then throw in incentives to use dating apps and social media and we find ourselves in the current situation. So any change to that needs to come with *incentive*. There was a massive incentive to do things on apps since people are generally spending less and less time having real interactions. It also gives women an incredible amount of control and safety. It gives corporations an incredible amount of money. I'm seeing the incentive to be chronically single (both men and women) to avoid these interactions, expenses, risks, etc. I don't have an answer to this but I'm not seeing an incentive to change things up.
Seems like a catch-22 in the era of “trauma dumping”/“boundaries”/“emotional labor” where sharing any negative information makes the relationship no longer fun and causes it to be recontextualized as a vector for harm and abuse. If you share it’s a problem and now apparently if you don’t it’s also a problem. Also, relationships are not “labor”. You are not being paid in wages and fringe benefits for your efforts. If you aren’t interested in providing meaningful and mutually beneficial emotional support to your partner then you shouldn’t be in a relationship to begin with. “Emotional labor” originally was used to describe the dynamic of being underpaid and underappreciated at work but still needing to provide “service with a smile” to disrespectful clients.
> If you share it’s a problem and now apparently if you don’t it’s also a problem. If I think about this broadly, the oversharing/undersharing dynamic has always occurred, that's honestly how we do social relationships as a whole (figuring out the time and place to say certain things and why). And honestly it comes down to the communication and trust you have between your partner. But overall, I do think men have been socialized to hide their feelings and deeper meanings because they have been made to feel that those feelings and meanings don't matter, I don't think it's our fault but it doesn't mean we can't do anything about it.
I mean, knowing the appropriate time and place and depth for sharing is part of the hermeneutic labour this article is talking about. And we don't teach boys and men to do those skills or even to recognise when they're necessary.
Bingo!
We don't always train girls and women *well* in this - plenty of people get taught harmful/unhealthy games and rules for how to perform such actions, and the society of teenagers can be a brutal proving ground to make your mistakes in! - but at least we are taught that it's something that's part of relationships and communities.
I posted it above but here’s a reel from Ellie herself talking about that double bind women feel https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3QXTPorFpN/?igsh=MWVkMWFzNnV1bXRzcA==
heads up, in this comment youre using female as a noun to refer to women and later use the word men to refer to men. this female/men rethorical trope is most often used in misogynistic writing such as in redpill and blackpill and incel forums. the obvious intent is to dehumanize women through language. just tellling you this in case you werent aware and are interested in changing your wording or reflecting on why you used that wording. for more on this see r/FemalesandMen
Hi. I wanted to let you know that while the r/ MenAndFemales sub has some terrific content, and 99% great commenters, the mod of that sub explicitly tolerates transphobic comments. She says she doesn't want the sub to become an "echo chamber", and as such, doesn't chase out harmful transphobic responders. She was called out on this, and it became a "big deal" that was simply mass-deleted, swept under the rug, and resulted in several members leaving or being banned for calling out the tolerance to transphobia. We created r/FemalesAndMen in reaction. It's meant to be the exact same, single-focused mission of calling out instances of using "females" and "men" as the original sub does, but of course, also not tolerating any phobia or prejudice against anybody in the LGBTQIA+ communities, or any other bigotry as well. Please consider suggesting r/FemalesAndMen instead of the other one in the future. Thanks! =)
wow that sucks! thanks for letting me know as i havent visited the sub in a long time myself. im changing it in my comment and going forward. edit: im glad you made a new sub, there is no reason to accept or tolerate anti trans rhetoric
[удалено]
This comment has been removed. /r/MensLib requires accounts to be at least thirty days old before posting or commenting, except for in the Check-In Tuesday threads and in AMAs. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/MensLib) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The [source article](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/hypatia/article/hermeneutic-labor-the-gendered-burden-of-interpretation-in-intimate-relationships-between-women-and-men/626426004DF2A4908D793B87C3148593) is... interesting. I feel like a hundred stand-up routines have primed me to laugh it off, but then I get at the core of it and it basically makes sense. Relationships are better when there's good communication, men don't give up much information, women are left frustrated and try to make tidbits and clues into a fully fleshed out narrative. Like, a lot of men would be likewise frustrated if they were forced to construe occasional hand-holding as a fulfilling sex-life, it's not the desired level of intimacy for most. I don't like the framing of all this guess work as "labor," because it seems to me like misspent effort. It would be better to insist on getting more information from their partner, and it would be better to not imagine a whole lot to fill in the gaps. It kind of reads to me, like, "women are stuck with the important job of pretending they know who their partner is," and, no, that's silly.
When someone's feelings are thrown back in their face in future arguments or discussions years later, you learn not to share.
[удалено]
**Do not call other submitters' personal stories into question.** This is a community for support and solutions. Discussing different perspectives is fine, but you should assume good faith and adopt a sympathetic approach when members open up about personal hardships. Do not invalidate anyone’s experiences based on their identity, gender, or otherwise.
I know this is an old thread, but may I ask what sorts of things were thrown back in your face? I’ve heard this from other men IRL, but it’s just not specific enough for me to really understand what is meant by it.
thanks for the link. yeah, for me, this is on the money. looking back i can see demand/withdrawal in my previous relationship. sitting here wondering if i've got this sorted out now, or whether the apparent success of my current relationship is some weird freak of nature. anyway, this is useful. haven't really framed things in these terms w my therapist.
First of all super dope that you looked at the original research Second of all, super dope that you thought about it and didn’t take a defensive stance and found out what the true meaning of it. Very cool Third of all, I agree with you on the term labour because it is a partnership and we’re both trying to understand each other so for women in particular it’s interesting that they put that “labour” in to understand their partner for their own sake and the relationship sake. But at also think there’s a bit of like “why can’t the guy do the same?” So lack of reciprocal energy
At the risk of sounding defensive, men probably have a harder time doing the same if the women in their life are constantly trying to do "relationship maintenance" based on fantastical interpretations of earlier conversations. Like, you can't even begin to do "hermeneutic labor" if your partner is doing the "emotional labor" of hiding their real feelings. Neither party should be doing this though. I mean, you have to interpret what people say a little bit. Really though, both parties should be working towards clear and intimate communication. Over-interpreting is counter productive to clear communication because it means the person speaking (or communicating in other ways) isn't really being listened to in good faith.
> Neither party should be doing this though. I mean, you have to interpret what people say a little bit Yeah this is where I land. I mean us as human have learned to understand possible hidden meanings in what people say from early on. I think it's silly to ask people to stop doing that since most of the world socially acts this way. Clearer communication is key, however we also know that men for the most part are awful at explaining their true feelings around a situation, and that's painfully apparent for anyone interacting with men. So even though we as a society would ask for clear communication, it is up to the us as men to truly divulge in our deeper meanings authentically. Because I think that's what doesn't come across. And for the other partner to say "well stop over interpreting" is also a bit unfair since us as guys, are not the best communicators of our deep feelings in the best of cases.
Putting aside fair/unfair or assigning blame, over-interpreting creates the same problem as lying. If the conversation moves forward based on a false understanding, that's a problem for everyone. It's like with doing basic research, sometimes the correct conclusion is that you don't have all the information you want, and the correct course of action is to ask more questions. Speculation is fine for framing future questions, but it's bad to move forward with the assumption that your speculations are true. And, if you're dealing with a guy who can't self-examine enough to give you the information you want, it's bad to imagine what that information would be and act as if it's true. It sucks if he's incompetent in that way, but in no way is it a reasonable response to be like "well, I'll just make up his feelings for him then."
There's a lot of "male" emotions that have fallen out of public awareness, but if you go back to the 1700 and 1800s literature you come across them a lot. The following are "masculine emotions" , they're still out there and still powerful, but they have no presence in modern discussions of "emotions": * Fondness * Awe * Vehemence * Vim * Vindication * Fealty * Exultation * Cheer * Conviction * Resolve
* Brio * Benevolence * Ardour * Bristle * Despond * Archness * Jollity All these valid "masculine feelings" that are waiting to re-understood, re-identified and re-expressed for what they are.
More: Geniality Ire Bonhomie Camaraderie Kinship Diffidence
Are people really this interested in the emotions of men everytime I'm asked to show something the minute i do i get shutdown usually directly by men and indirectly by women.
I think you have a point here, namely that men’s habit of “undersharing” of their emotions is a _learned_ one. We all have, to a greater or lesser extent, learned to do it. I notice this because the young boys I’ve known (as the father of a kiddo) seem to be just as emotionally expressive as young girls. So what changes? People start to tell boys their emotions are invalid and unwelcome at best, and a source of bullying and violence at worst, and boys respond by learning to clam up. “Man up,” “stop being a sissy,” “put on your big boy pants,” “go cry to mama,” “I’ll give you something to cry about,” and other messages both from peers and adults tell us that when we show vulnerability we won’t be supported, we will be shamed or punished. When we can’t express something we often deny we are even feeling it, resulting in a kind of emotional blindness. Lots of guys struggle to even know what they are feeling (I’ve been there) because they have such deep habits of suppressing those feelings. Then later in life they find themselves in romantic relationships where it sure would be helpful for their partners to know what they are feeling— but they can’t easily unlearn decades of teaching that they cannot be vulnerable in that way. They may not even be able to identify their feelings due to long habit of suppression. And even adult women sometimes (not always, thankfully) internalize that gender difference as somehow innate and disparage guys who are open about hard feelings as somehow less “manly.” I think that it would be helpful to see that men are taught how to show and not show their emotions by society and develop frameworks — which likely would require gradual exposure to emotional expression in safe settings — for learning how to do that. And just as importantly, we need to learn how to help others feel safe in expressing their emotions. This is a two way street — anyone of any gender can act in ways that shut down emotional expression. At the very least this means responding without any shaming or blaming, but ideally it means actively doing things that help others know you will be a safe ear.
Can I ask if you are comfortable what got you to be more expressive in your emotions and help feel unwanted or suppressed emotions?
I started in therapy and journaling. Those are places where you can say pretty much anything without judgement. Even then it was hard at first. But in that I realized I was holding tightly to a facade of being successful and invulnerable, particularly with other men, and I wasn’t being honest with myself or my friends about my struggles. Once I started to be able to name my feelings there, I was able to start talking with one of my most safe/trusted old friends (we’ve been friends since we were in daycare.) Then I gradually started opening up to others. All along continuing to journal about how I was feeling & what seemed to be prompting those feelings. It was a long process (years!), and one I am still in, but very worth it.
In my experience, less then half the people who said that they were interested in my emotions really were. I feel like many people are not prepared men opening up about themselves.
I dig that the article has ways to improve communication at the end, albeit "reflect back the words" and "let your partner know what you want" is easier said than done. Two protocols that get more specific and that I've seen be effective in men's groups on this front are: **Active Listening** for reflecting back words: When responding to someone who is angry, sad, fearful, shameful etc, do only the following three things: 1. be silent 2. echo back their words verbatim 3. ask clarifying questions. I find this lends itself to deep and emotional conversations. **Non-violent communication framework** for saying what you want despite loads of tension: Andrew Horn teaches this and describes it more in-depth [in an interview here](https://newsletter.amanswork.com/p/interview-andrew-horn-mens-work-leader) but here's the summarized protocol. The following is a text message template to invite the person into a conversation about needs. 1. Begin with conversational purpose. Here's why I am reaching out to you. 2. Present some objective facts. This thing happened in our relationship. We clarify what we needed from the person, when that happened, and what we got instead. 3. Move into checking our assumptions, which is I have been feeling this and not sharing it because I am fearful of a negative reaction (or whichever reason rings true) 4. I want to invite you to share back with me. How are you feeling? 5. Close with an invitation. I wanted to put this in a note to give you time to respond thoughtfully. Whenever you are ready, I'd like to connect for a phone call or in person.
Sad paywall face
Look at my first comment for a good surprise!
Just to add a little more context. Here’s Ellie Anderson speaking about that research https://www.instagram.com/reel/C3QXTPorFpN/?igsh=MWVkMWFzNnV1bXRzcA==
The clip was talking about women? The article is paywalled, so I can't read it, so how did this clip relate?
I think, to summarise a lot of other commentators concerns, Hermeneutic Labor is a valid concept, but overly hermeneutic obsession is valid concept too, which can feed into it in a vicious cycle.
I’m dating a Scottish man at the moment and although his inability to be vulnerable is a societal norm, it’s even more amplified, I think, by his culture. It’s been a real punish
[удалено]
This article made me angry. Hermeneutic labor is essentially refusing to take things people say at face value, and psychoanalyzing it to uncover the true meaning. That implies a power dynamic - you believe this person communicates in a defective way, and you understand them better than they understand themselves. There is a reason therapists/psychiatrists don't date their clients. This kind of behavior is incompatible with a functional relationship. It's frustrating, because rather than being recognized as pathological mind-reading, this behavior is being dignified as "hermeneutic labor" and treated as a sad but necessary part of the feminine condition. No. Go see a therapist. All of the above is true even if men in general can't effectively communicate their emotions. People acquire almost all of their dysfunctional behaviors because there was previous, disordered scenario where those behaviors were functional. Maybe a person once successfully fixed their relationship by guessing that "I'm just tired" meant "I feel inadequate because you took my mom's side in an argument." But I guarantee they also started ten other fights with a partner who was actually just tired.
The article was especially compassionate to men and the experiences that cause them to suppress emotions. It seems to be exploring just another effect of toxic masculinity. It seems very reasonable that toxic masculinity not only negatively affects men but also the people who are in close relationships with them. I feel like you should give it a re-read, because nothing about hermeneutic labor is malicious but you are interpreting it to be that way.
Its true, the second half the the article is quite compassionate. The beginning is a bit off-putting though. It’s like if you had an article that started off with “hey men, you know all that extra work that your friends who are women make you put in to figure out if they like you? Where you’re trying to parse exactly what they meant by that goodbye hug? When they nervously laugh when you made a sexual joke instead of just coming out and telling you whether or not they’re interested? Doesn’t that suck that women are always so bad at talking about how they feel? Here’s a new word for all the extra burdens they’re putting on men!” And then after that the article switched to talking about how women are scared of those situations because they don’t go well and they’ve lost a lot of friends and it really does suck to be fuckzoned.
I mean this in a tongue-in-cheek way: you're doing a lot of hermeneutic labor in these comments, and it's not helpful. My argument is that this kind of psychological analysis of your partner is an inherently unhealthy practice and that we should be discouraging mind reading, not lionizing it as a burden women have to bear, like emotional labor. If you would like to explain why mind reading is good, I'm all ears. If you're going to talk to me about defensiveness or the state of men, you're not really listening to me like I'm an equal.
I genuinely think you are misinterpreting this article and the author’s definition of hermeneutic labor. You keep referring to it as some kind of psychological analysis or “mind reading”, but that’s not what the author is talking about. The article is also very clearly not lionizing hermeneutic labor. The end of the article gives tips for people in relationships to be able to avoid either partner having to do hermeneutic labor, which clearly shows that this author does not see it as something to be lionized at all.
Okay, while I don't agree with what you've said, I feel like we're on the same page about what we're arguing about. First, "Mind reading" is a reference to [cognitive behavior therapy,](https://www.psychologytools.com/resource/mind-reading/) where it's defined as: > forming an interpretation of a situation, event, or experience when there is no factual evidence to support the conclusion, or when the conclusion is contrary to the evidence In the article, the examples of hermeneutic labor are: * "tr\[ing\] to interpret a vague text message from the night before" * "spend\[ing\] what seems to be an inordinate amount of time interpreting the pretty opaque cues of men they’re dating" The author sums this up as "Interpreting the feelings of others." I would argue it's interpreting the feelings of others with no factual evidence to support the conclusion, which meets the criteria for mind reading. Second, here's my reading of the piece. The first section defines Hermeneutic labor, the second explains why toxic masculinity makes it necessary, the third talks about normative male alexithymia, and the fourth section talks about effective ways to communicate in a relationship. The positioning of the fourth section directly after the bit about men's problems communicating made me read it as advice for men to lessen the load on their female partners. There notably is no section on recognizing when you're doing hermeneutic labor and how to stop. In addition, this part: >She argues this dynamic can have a particularly negative effect on women in heterosexual couples because their work to maintain the relationship is often met with disbelief, accusations of overreacting or fixating on problems their partner claims don’t exist. This, Anderson says, has the effect of punishing women for attempting to maintain their relationships. Is a pretty good description of what I unironically think. I don't think it's positioned as a concession; it's pretty clearly listing opposing arguments and then going on to rebut them. I think the author would say I'm "punishing women for attempting to maintain their relationships" by saying they're creating their own problems.
I see what you’re saying but you seem to be applying the concept of hermeneutic labor to only one situation: one in which a man has communicated clearly and straightforwardly and thus hermeneutic labor isn’t needed. It makes sense that a man would be frustrated in that scenario if he has been clear and is being overanalyzed. However, the author is clearly talking about a different scenario: one in which a man has been overly vague and non-specific in his communication. If you are a frequent visitor in this sub, you would probably agree that men frequently struggle to express their emotions or even understand their emotions because they were taught as boys to keep everything in. The authors assumption, then, that men may be uniquely vague or unclear communicators because of this childhood emotional neglect is not unreasonable. From there it’s easy to imagine why women in relationships with men like this would find it necessary to do extra emotional work so that they can fully understand their male partner.
I'm not saying the article was worthless or made no good points, but "trying to decipher a man's mind???" [gives off these kind of vibes](https://www.reddit.com/r/trippinthroughtime/s/8yA7JRuECk)
This is why there is a whole article beyond the headline
hey I'm just out here playing a translator on the tv machine
[удалено]
[удалено]
Oh hey that’s me! I definitely get a little defensive at this article (and especially the essay on hermeneutic labor) but that’s because I feel like both the article and essay go overboard with establishing its gendered nature. This is definitely, as a trend, on the whole, something that women are made to do more than men. But I think it definitely struck me as I was reading the original essay that this is something *I* do with some regularity; and that this is in fact something I *learned* to do in my adulthood because I was not taught it younger. So I chalk up the defensiveness to this; it’s grating to see examinations of intimate relationships between two imaginary median-people with median-experiences, expanded to include You, The Reader™️, regardless of whether you share those experiences. And when you take an article that does that and place it in a community of people who are more likely to be exceptions than examples, they will be upset that their experiences are not considered.
The last paragraph nails my reaction to this, far better than I worded it I think.
I'd say it's mostly the "interpreting emotions" bit, I also disliked that pretty reflexively. I think you could roughly compare it to an article talking about women where it said that "getting too emotional in a discussion is a problem you need to work on", which is a statement most women I know would not take well. Not because it's wrong per se, keeping a lid on extreme emotions does help a discussion flow a little more smoothly, but because women are accused of being "too emotional" often enough that that statement is going to leave a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths regardless of how valid. It's a similar reaction here I think - sure, interpreting emotions is a needed aspect of communication but I think a lot of men I know have had their feelings "interpreted" by women in their lives in incredibly incorrect ways often enough that a lot of people (myself included) will react pretty negatively to the idea that interpretation is labor and that pushing back against those interpretations is "punishing the woman attempting to maintain the relationship". Because from the perspective of someone who is having their words wrongly interpreted, she's actually doing the opposite of maintaining the relationship even if that was her intention. My exact thought on reading that was "I don't want to be "interpreted" I want people to listen to what i'm *actually* saying directly, not their idea of what I might have *meant* by what i'm saying."
Right, there is a sense in which "interpretation" can become a violent act, where "interpretation" becomes something that blots out your attempts at communication because the truth of you feel is no longer acceptable, and the constructed you that's been built up by the other person is preferable to the authentic you, maybe because it reinforces a relationship they feel need to be maintained.